The work of TLC has a huge impact, not only on the patients who directly benefit from the surgery, but on families of the patients, the doctors, and future kidney failure patients. Kidney failure does not only affect the patient, but has huge negative implications for the family. Time on a dialysis machine is on average 3 days a week (at roughly $100 per session), meaning that many adults with kidney failure simply cannot work to provide for their family. If the family cannot afford or have access to dialysis treatment the average life expectancy is just 3 months. Our work means that doctors and surgeons are trained to carry out these transplants so that an infinite number of patients of the future can be treated, and start leading a normal life.

Case Study - Hannah

Hannah was just 14 years old when TLC went to Trinidad in 2015. She had been suffering with end-stage kidney failure for years, and as a result was unable to go to school because of her extensive and exhausting dialysis treatment. She missed seeing her friends, and being a normal little girl. Her dialysis was not working efficiently, and her family were beginning to give up hope.

I just want her to be able to do things like a normal child. - Hannah's mother

Thanks to the help of TLC surgeons little Hannah was able to receive a kidney from her older brother Luke, and doesn't have to live her life under the shadow of dialysis treatment. Hannah has great plans for her new life, telling TLC nurses she's "going to go back to school, get my education, and I'm going to be a doctor". What she whispered as the nurses walked away, was that she couldn't wait to eat KFC again!